Eduardo Rossi (Naples 1867 – 1926), “Ballerina”, Second decade of the 20th century.
Ivory, patinated bronze, green onyx, cm. 43 x 24
Signed “Rossi 8260” on the statue.
The Art Nouveau statuette depicts a ballerina. The girl wears a precious stage costume for a ballet: on her head, she wears a golden cap decorated with buttons and four enameled peacock feathers; an ornamental motif that recalls the plumage of the bird is also reused for the hem of the dress she is wearing. Rossi's mastery emerges when you focus on the girl's face: she bows, looks up, and smiles with complacent delight at the viewer.
BIOGRAPHY
Eduardo Rossi was born in Naples in 1867. Enrolled at the Neapolitan Academy of Fine Arts, he became a student of the realist sculptor Achille d'Orsi. In 1895 he made his debut at the First International Art Exhibition in Venice, with the sculpture Fisherman of octopuses; the following year he participated in the Exhibition of Fine Arts in Florence with the bust of the Forosetta, now kept at the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. In 1898 he presented a bust of the Virgin at “Art at the Exhibition” in Turin. In the following years he was present in the registers of various Italian exhibitions, and then participated in the 1910 Exhibition in Brussels, where he obtained a Bronze Medal for the Sculpture category.
Information about his biography is unknown.
